PigsCanFly

Finally signed up to Flyertalk so I can post! I got a new job that is going to see my traveling extensively. They use TripActions and it while they don't allow you to book using your own credit card, you can obviously acquire points/miles and what have you.

The trouble is, I live in Sarasota. The nearest larger airport is TPA which is a good hours drive at least.

It looks like my customers are in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Boston and New York and I'll be visiting them at least twice a year each.

We also travel for pleasure quite regularly and stay primarily in Bonvoy properties.

What is a good strategy for those who don't live near a hub? I really love the convenience of SRQ airport but there are only a handful of destinations, so I'd be frequently connecting. Tampa is much better but you can't really call it a 'hub'.

All advice and banter appreciated!

guv1976

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

​​​​​If, for a particular destination, your choice were between a connection from SRQ versus a nonstop from TPA, which would you choose?

Because of AA's recent tie-up with JetBlue, you can fly nonstop from SRQ to ORD, DFW, EWR, and JFK year-round, with seasonal nonstops to BOS and LGA. By crediting all of your AA and B6 flights to your AAdvantage account, you can reach AAdvantage elite status sooner, which would give you some benefits on both carriers. Another AA partner, Alaska Airlines, offers seasonal nonstops from TPA to SFO.

From SRQ, UA offers year-round nonstops to EWR and ORD, and seasonal service to DEN. UA offers year-round TPA-SFO nonstops.

If obtaining status in a frequent-flyer program is important to you, I would probably fly AA and B6 -- and maybe AS for its seasonal TPA-SFO service -- and credit all flights to AA.

Good luck!

PigsCanFly

Wow! I didn’t think about the JetBlue partnership, that’s good to know and gives me a lot to think about.

Because I can’t even get to NYC from SRQ with American so almost thought about ruling them out entirely.

How do people rate AA and AAdvantage these days? I’ve heard mixed things…

guv1976

I think that AAdvantage is superior to Delta's SkyMiles program (there's a reason why they're called "Sky Pesos"). UA's MileagePlus has the benefit of more partners in Star Alliance, and no carrier surcharges on any redemptions, but for a lot of redemptions, they seem to charge more miles than AAdvantage does. AAdvantage sometimes has very cheap redemptions on domestic Coach award travel.

If you're looking for Coach award travel, AAdvantage should be fine. For premium cabin travel, I expect that you'll be spending a lot of miles no matter which program you use.

DL as an airline seems to be higher rated than AA by many travelers, but I think that one's experience on AA would be OK with even low-level elite status.

Depending on how much (non-business-travel) spend you can put annually on a Citi or Barclays AA credit card, you could reach elite status in AAdvantage pretty quickly. And miles earned through AA's e-shopping portal now count towards status, too.

PigsCanFly

I think you might have decided this for me. Was really swinging towards Delta due to past experiences but if I can combine JB with AA travel (and I’m a big fan of JB) then that sounds like the way forward.

I also fly to the UK once or twice a year so could use BA direct from Tampa for that.

Thanks!!

guv1976

You're welcome!

If you haven't already done so, you should probably familiarize yourself with AA's new "Loyalty Points" scheme for attaining elite status in the AAdvantage program. Details here:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ge-program.jsp

And it would probably be worth your while to get an AAdvantage credit card, not only for the sign-up bonus, but also because each $1 charged earns one Loyalty Point. Details here:

https://frequentmiler.com/aaplat/

On your business trips, must you charge your meals to a corporate card, or can you use a personal card to get reimbursed? Don't overlook the AAdvantage Dining program, which lets you earn AA miles and Loyalty Points by dining at, or taking out from, participating restaurants, in addition to the miles/points you would earn by charging your meals to an AAdvantage credit card.

angetenar

Do you get to fly in first/business, or is it all in economy? UA status earning is all based on how much you're spending with them, so if your employer is paying for more expensive flights, it's very straightforward to earn status.

PigsCanFly

will definitely familiarize myself with the above. I’ve been a member of almost every loyalty club but never flown enough or committed to one. I’m from the UK also the most value I ever got was with BA (Avios) ages ago and at the time it was pretty good value for short haul flight redemption.

will definitely take advantage of whichever credit card makes sense. Probably the Citi one. Providing AA is definitely for me (which it probably is!)

And on the last point, definitely have the ability to spend on dining with my own card. Same goes for hotels. For some reason it’s only the flights where the company forms the bill outright, which I found odd

interesting! Only on legs over 8hrs, of which there won’t be many. So you’re saying UA doesn’t have like MQDs and all those other hoops to jump through?

guv1976

I can't speak to the MileagePlus program, but with AA, the number of Loyalty Points you earn for flying will be a multiple of pre-tax fare when flying on AA/B6. The multiple is 5x for non-status members, 7x for AAdvantage Gold, and higher for higher-ststus elites. For travel on AA's oneworld partners (like AS and BA), LPs will be based on flight distance, cabin flown, and fare class (the same cabin might have multiple fare classes).

But with AA, base miles earned through credit-card spend, car rentals, hotel stays, e-shopping, and AAdvantage Dining all count as Loyalty Points, so you might be able to achieve higher status with AAdvantage depending on how much of those other activities you engage in.

Mwenenzi

AA, UA & DL are now revenue based frequent flyer(spender) programs for the own flights. Different earning rules for partner flights.
Nowadays many people earn many ff miles from credit cards, hotel, rental cars an other non flying activities.
Flying from a non hub means more flights=more ff miles/status earning (so good if that is what you like). But longer time to travel due transits.

Does read as if AA & B6, crediting to AAdvantage would be a good fit.
With AA DFW & CLT are big hubs. Will get you to most places.
Alaska AS is an AA ffp. AS is now in Oneworld alliance (AA, BA, CX, QR, QF, IB, JL etc)
A drive to TPA for some AA or AS flights (non stop destinations), where departing from SQR less desirable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraso...tional_Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_...tional_Airport
Great Circle Mapper

What are your objectives from a ffp?
Awards? (to UK?). Upgrades?
BA (avios) is good for short awards,as distance based. AA awards are zone based.

angetenar

For UA, $1 spent = 1 PQP, a premier qualifying point. Qualification for status is based on PQPs and PQFs, premier qualifying flights, which are just flight segments operated by UA and Star Alliance partners. You also need a minimum of 4 segments of UA metal. Then, to qualify for status, each tier has a PQP only threshold, and a PQP + PQF threshold. For example, you can qualify for UA Silver with 3000 PQPs and 4 PQFs, or 3500 PQPs. There are some additional complications when you consider how earning works on partner airlines, but I won't go into those for now, as they're not super important.

Personally, I also would not pick AA because of the JetBlue partnership; I have my doubts as to whether or not it will survive long term.

guv1976

I have to disagree with this. Given the planned merger between JetBlue and Spirit, there will undoubtedly be changes to the AA/JetBlue relationship, and code-shares will likely disappear. But it's not clear that the reciprocal frequent-flyer benefits will be sacrificed. (Even before AS joined oneworld, AA and AS had a special relationship which provided for some reciprocal frequent-flyer benefits.)

But even if worse comes to worst, and the OP decides that it no longer makes sense to stay with AAdvantage in a year or two, by that time he should have acquired AAdvantage elite status. And if he then wants to migrate to MileagePlus, there's some likelihood that MileagePlus will then be offering a status match, as they are this year:

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...os/SM2022.html

So I think that going with AAdvantage, if that's most beneficial right now because of the AA/B6 tie-up, is fairly low risk, regardless of what happens to that tie-up down the road.

angetenar

For the OP, do be careful with status matches/challenges. United (as do AA and Delta) offers a status challenge, where you submit your existing status with another airline and get an offer that is like fly X flights and earn Y PQPs and you get the status. Some airlines offer status matches, where you submit your current status and get their corresponding status level without any flying required.

MSPeconomist

Be careful too in that most airlines will not give you status matches/challenges too often. In the extreme, it's supposed to be once in a lifetime to match/challenge to a particular airline's FF program. Don't do this unless you intend to fly that airline/alliance.

BTW, be sure to read your employer's travel policy carefully.

lwildernorva

Let me suggest an alternative strategy that still involves AA. Since you may fly twice per year to the UK from Tampa, enroll in BA's Executive Club. Two trips to the UK from Tampa in any class above coach credited to BA will provide you a potential pathway to BA Silver status, which is oneworld Sapphire.

Based on two trips per year, if you fly only in World Traveller Plus, BA's premium economy product, and do not make a connection onward from London, you'll earn 360 tier points in BA's status program. You need 600 to get to Silver, but you can credit AA flights to BA for tier point purposes.

If you have connections beyond London in your plans, that will add an extra 80 tier points (four flight segments times 20 tier points each), meaning you need to credit fewer AA flights to get to Silver. Take Club World and only to London, you'll earn 560 points. Any one connection with a Club World fare gets you another 40 tier points, hitting the Silver threshold.

When you get to Silver, you not only get access to BA's basic lounges, you'll get access to AA's clubs in the US. AA's own elites don't get that access unless flying on international flights while I get it for every basic economy flight I take on a regional jet in the US.

There's also a free bag allowance on AA and better seat selection. The major disadvantage to BA elite status as opposed to AA was the systemwide upgrade program, but because of the excess of AA elites, you needed top elite status to make use of that. I happily ignored that benefit. I've followed this strategy for years since my home airport is also not a hub but has a lot of AA flights.

If you're going to fly AA a lot, would prefer to credit all your flights, including your BA flights, to AA--which I'd understand since unless you decide to credit all your AA flights to BA, you'll have miles spread across two programs and maybe you'll only be taking coach to the UK or wouldn't earn enough from your AA flights to hit the Silver threshold--I'd still consider taking two AA credit cards, the regular AA credit card through Citi or Barclays and the Citi AA Executive card. The first, for $99 per year, gets you a free bag and modestly moves you up the passenger loading order. The second, at $495, gets you access to the Admirals Clubs. If you're doing that many flights on AA each year, that's $600 well spent.